Sunday, March 16, 2014

The 2d indie animated feature movement

In this era of multi million dollar 3d animated films which must turn a 300 million dollar profit or be doomed a failure by Wall Street, it’s curious to know that independent 2d animated features are bubbling up to fill the void of artistic expression at a reasonable cost. Tools today have afforded the motivated artist to actually complete a film themselves or with a very small crew. This brings me to new completed and proposed feature films by Elliot Cowan, Jim Lujan, Michel Gagne, Nick Cross and veteran Ralph Bakshi.
Most of these films are budgeted well under a million dollars and many have been helped by Kickstarter campaigns.
Elliot Cowan recently released his film “The stressful Adventures of Boxhead and Roundhead”
Jim Lujan just released his new 56 minute feature on YouTube called “KounterKlockwise in Foreverland”
The talented Michel Gagne has just received and option from Belgian Grid Films for his Kickstarter project, “The Saga of Rex”
Nick Cross has been working on his solo feature film called “Black Sunrise”
And the legendary Ralph Bakshi returns to animated features with “The Last Days of Coney Island”
Let’s hope these films do well and usher in a new era of 2d animation and more artist driven animated features. Oh yes, and I will be releasing a Kustomonsters 35 minute featurette called, "The Legend of Mummy Daddyo" later in 2014! Stay tooned!

The Skinny

I’ve been in the animation business over 30 years with credits ranging from Forrest Gump to the Simpsons. I’m working on my own TV/Feature project, The Kustomonsters for AMGTV, as well as freelancing for Hollywood studios.